Personal Business; An Enron Auditor and an Elephant Walk Into a Bar . . .

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

Published: March 3, 2002

HOUSTON—
MEREDITH M. STEWART is trying to wrestle some good and perhaps some laughs -- out of the Enron debacle.

She was one of the more than 4,000 local employees who lost their jobs after the company collapsed. Her image, as she sat on the boxes she had moved out of Enron's headquarters on Dec. 3, has been published around the world. And now, three months later, she has recorded a song that pokes fun at Enron's rise and fall. With rap-style renderings of snippets of speeches by Kenneth L. Lay, the former chairman, and other executives in the background, Ms. Stewart sings:

We danced at parties and drank the booze

Stock was up no way to lose

Now less than zero and falling fast

Got no severance and my savings are trashed.

Ms. Stewart, 24, said she and several colleagues did not produce the song to make light of the situation. They did it because ''there's only so much sadness you can take till you just need a break,'' said Ms. Stewart, who helped design Enron databases and has since found a job at a software company.

Enron has proved a rich lode for professional jokesters; it's a nightly standard on the late-night talk shows and in editorial cartoons. On Web sites like witcity.com, visitors can listen to a fake voice-mail message from Enron: ''If you wish to serve a subpoena on a current or former Enron executive, press 1,'' it says, and for tips on ''how to turn your stock certificates into decorative origami, press 2.'' The selections then become raunchier.

Several sites feature song parodies, including remakes of ''Son of a Preacher Man,'' ''Gangsta's Paradise'' and ''Sing a Song of Sixpence,'' as well as the Crystals classic ''Da Do Run Run'' that goes:

The accountants said that everything was A-O.K.

At Enron-Ron Ron, at Enron-Ron.

Now the moving vans are taking all the desks away,

From Enron-Ron Ron, from Enron-Ron . . .

Texas comedians find Enron a juicy target. A Houston country music radio station, KKBQ, broadcast a ''Save the C.E.O.'' message that echoed advertisements from the Save the Children charity, describing, for example, how some of the company's executives ''are living at or just below the seven-figure salary level.''

Cactus Pryor, the courtly dean of the state's professional humorists, has been peppering his after-dinner speeches with zingers like his observation that Houstonians wanted a ''more respected name'' for the company's Enron Field, ''like 'Bin Laden Field.' ''

Mr. Pryor blends Texas roots with the Enron crisis by telling a joke about two cowboys. One says he ''read in the paper that Ken Lay had to sell all his stock.'' The other replies: ''Yeah, well, I know how he feels. What with this drought, I had to sell all of mine, except for a mama cow and two yearlings.''

But one of the most impressive flowerings of humor from the company's collapse has come from those most affected: the former employees.

On their own Web sites, with names like Kenron.net, enronX.com and 1400smith.com (a reference to the address of the company's silver tower in Houston), former employees can read the latest about the company's bankruptcy filing, make possible job connections and banter about the collapse.

In one discussion, a participant posted an image of Mr. Lay's photograph being shredded. And in one continuing discussion about new names the company might choose for itself, ex-Enron wits made recommendations of their own, including ''EnCompetent,'' ''EnEpt,'' ''EnFamy'' and ''Houston Natural Gas'' -- the name of the pipeline company that preceded Enron and its fast-and-cool business model.

It's a testament to the creativity of the Enron employees -- and the creative potential that can flower when people have a lot of free time on their hands. The jokes flew fast and furious when Enron was in its prime, too, said Chris Atherton, 25, a former employee of Enron Energy Services. Insiders, giddy with the company's seeming success, joked about the company's aggressive accounting department. ''We called it 'the Enron treasury,' '' because it was as if ''we printed our own money.''

Fortunes have shifted, but the sense of humor remains, he said. ''Now with the wind completely blown out of us,'' he said, ''we kind of poke fun at ourselves.''

FOR many of the abruptly fired employees, the jokes and other exchanges on the online discussion boards provide a sense of community. ''I still feel like I'm part of something special,'' said Richard Rusk, who used to work at Enron Energy Services and now works for a company that makes high-tech water heaters. ''Even though we're not physically together, we're staying in touch.''

Mr. Pryor, the humorist, said humor was an old and honored method of dealing with hard times on the job and in life: ''It's the greatest prescription there is -- laughter to keep from crying.''

Photo: Meredith M. Stewart, 24, lost her job at Enron late last year. (Associated Press)